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Don't made me start to talking about science in Spain. > It's not even possible to go beyond 5 years And we still wonder why nobody is trying to paint a new G

Don't made me start to talking about science in Spain. > It's not even possible to go beyond 5 years And we still wonder why nobody is trying to paint a new Giocconda now, and where are the big results First they repeat "ad-nauseam" that only want the very passionate and ambitious people, but then force you to choose a mediocre theme to work on it, or to solve very complex problems that nobody has figured before in a couple of years, plus one to land and other to write. - "We have very serious environmental problems that treat our survival as species. What we could do?... Oh; What if we give the people only four years to solve it and save everybody. Just to create suspense?" This happens by two very simple rules 1. Anybody starting in science must be dumber than this boss. Scientists must be all mediocre and equally talented, have the same background and fit to the current ideas. If I want to study a complex problem for six or ten, or twenty years with my own money, well... is my problem. I repeat. Is -my- problem. No other fields have this restriction. You will never see things like: - "You are an architect? If you can't build an airport or major monument in <4 years you quit and everything is burnt down. This called Sidney Opera is taking too much to build, I can't understand this shape, lets start again and trow the investment in the dumpster" - "You are a politician?. If you don't became president in three years and a half (or are more than 30 Yo), you are fired" Who are the politicians to say how much of my time I can invest in something, when they don't apply the same rule to themselves?. Oh, I forgot the second rule: 2. Any grant money graciously given for a politician must benefit the politician career. Period. This means that science is now crushed to fit electoral intervals of four years Unexpected maternity? Two years of covid?, say bye to your career and the investment of decades of study And then they delay the grants payment for two or three years, just for laughs.

Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago
You seem to make the assumption that large contributions should be made within the duration of a PhD program. In my view, a PhD program's goal is to train new researchers. If awesome breakthroughs are generated before the thesis, of course it's a big plus, but not the point... PhD graduates still have several decades of career ahead of them to paint their Gioccondas. The PhD is just to get them started, when they graduate they should be able to fly alone and generate independent research. There is the problem that research funding (also after the PhD) is associated to projects that only last for a few years, but that seems to be pretty much universal.

Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago

You seem to make the assumption that large contributions should be made within the duration of a PhD program. In my view, a PhD program's goal is to train new researchers. If awesome breakthroughs are generated before the thesis, of course it's a big plus, but not the point... PhD graduates still have several decades of career ahead of them to paint their Gioccondas. The PhD is just to get them started, when they graduate they should be able to fly alone and generate independent research. There is the problem that research funding (also after the PhD) is associated to projects that only last for a few years, but that seems to be pretty much universal.